Ajit Pawar has become Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister
Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar has removed three party leaders for attending the oath ceremony of his nephew Ajit Pawar as Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister on Sunday. The party's Lok Sabha MP Supriya Sule has also demanded the disqualification of MPs Praful Patel and Sunil Tatkare for allegedly engineering "secretive" defections.
The Nationalist Congress Party's (NCP) action against the three leaders and the call for disqualifying two MPs are seen as showing an example to those who supported the rebel Ajit Pawar.
The expelled leaders are Mumbai divisional NCP chief Narendra Rathod, Akola city district chief Vijay Deshmukh and state minister Shivajirao Garje. All three had attended Ajit Pawar's oath ceremony.
"I write with great urgency to inform you that two MPs of NCP, namely Praful Patel and Sunil Tatkare, have acted in violation of our Constitution, party rules and indulged in anti-party activities by facilitating and spearheading the oath ceremony of 9 MLAs..." Ms Sule wrote in a letter to Sharad Pawar.
"The fact these defections were done in such secretive manner, without the knowledge or consent of the party president, amount to desertion of the party which in turn invites disqualification. With this, it has become abundantly clear that the said MPs no longer share the aims and ideology of the NCP," Ms Sule said.
The NCP's discipline committee, too, has called for disqualification of the 9 MLAs who backed Ajit Pawar in his revolt to ally with the ruling Shiv Sena-BJP alliance.
"...These actions of the 9 MLAS call for immediate disqualification... if allowed to continue as members, there is a very real likelihood that they will continue to try and undermine the interests of the party," the NCP's discipline committee said in a statement.
The sudden turn of events that capped weeks of speculation over Ajit Pawar's next political move came as a shocker to his uncle Sharad Pawar.
Ajit Pawar was sworn in as Deputy Chief Minister by Governor Ramesh Bais on Sunday at the Raj Bhawan, where 9 other NCP leaders - some of whom are close aides of Sharad Pawar - attended.
Sharad Pawar, the 83-year-old Maratha strongman who hopes to become a key player in an anti-BJP front in 2024, put up a brave face and called his nephew's rebellion a "robbery".
Ajit Pawar defended his decision to share power with the BJP. "If we can go with the Shiv Sena, then we can go with the BJP as well. The same thing happened in Nagaland as well," Ajit Pawar said.
He asserted there was no split in the NCP, the party founded by his uncle in 1999 after he left the Congress.